This invention relates generally to chairs and, more particularly, to chairs having a reclining back rest.
Chairs having a back rest which is rearwardly reclinable when a user leans back against it are very popular. Such chairs are generally held to be more comfortable than chairs with rigid, non-deflectable back rests.
To date, however, chairs having reclinable back rest have required complex, cumbersome and expensive constructions. Such constructions are impractical for schools and other institutional entities providing large conference centers (e.g., hotels, convention centers, etc.) Reclinable chairs of the prior art are generally too large, too expensive and too difficult to store for such institutional entities.
Accordingly, there is a need for a chair with a reclinable back which is at once compact, inexpensive to manufacture and convenient to store.
The invention satisfies this need. The invention is a chair having a seat and a back rest. The back rest is attached to the seat via a back rest support element. The back rest support element comprises a flat spring disposed under pre-tension.
In one embodiment, the seat is disposed upon a seat support structure having four legs. Preferably, the legs are splayed outside the perimeter of the seat, so that the chair is stackable with chairs of like design.
In another embodiment, the back rest support element further comprises a full tilt stop tab for preventing the over-deflection of the back rest in a rearward direction and an at-rest stop tab for preventing the forward deflection of the back rest beyond a predetermined xe2x80x9cat-restxe2x80x9d position.
In a typical embodiment, the seat and the backrest are made from a lightweight plastic material and the support structure is made from tubular steel.
It is also typical that the flat spring be made from a non-metallic material, such as from fiberglass.